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ThinMatrix
|birth_place = London, United Kingdom |nationality = British |occupation = Independant game developer, YouTube personality |years_active = 2013 - present |known_for = ThinMatrix YouTube channel |notable_works = Equilinox |home_town = Germany |hair = Black |eyes = Hazel }} Karl Wimble, better known as ThinMatrix, is a British independent game developer and YouTube personality based in Germany. He is the sole developer of the nature simulation game Equilinox, and has several notable series on his YouTube channel ThinMatrix.https://www.youtube.com/user/ThinMatrix/videos, including his 'OpenGL 3D Game Tutorial' series, and his devlog series where he documents his progress on his current projects on a weekly basis in a vlog format. History Karl began game development whilst attending university in 2013. He uploaded his first devlog videohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQk_9EjFfxg to his YouTube channel around this time, which was a devlog showing him developing a 3D game with OpenGL. By 2014, this game had begun to take shape as an MMORPG, based on combat and exploring an ingame world. Around July of the same year, he uploaded the first episode of his 'OpenGL 3D Game Tutorial' series, which was a course on how to create 3D graphics and a simple 3D game with the OpenGL API and the Lightweight Java Game Library framework. Throughout the game's development, the community on YouTube assisted greatly with the project, contributing ideas, assets and in-game content to the project, to a point where roughly 75% of the game's content was created by the communityhttps://youtube.com/watch?v=zXor9tD0IxQ?t=277. The community even helped eventually decide the game's name, as it was previously unnamed. The name decided on was 'Socuwan'. On August 15, 2015, Karl announced in a devlog video that he had moved to an apartment in Berlin, Germanyhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJhLFy2W-Mc. On September 4th, 2015, Karl launched a Kickstarter campaignhttps://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1465468930/socuwan-the-community-driven-indie-mmorpg to fund Socuwan. The campaign goal was set for €60,000 (67,569.60 USD), and the money was to be spent on Karl's full time commitment to the project and the initial server costs for the game. On October 5, 2015, the Kickstarter campaign for Socuwan failed, finally raising €9,531 (10,734.68 USD). Without funding, Karl had to put Socuwan on hold indefinitelyhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ2eVazceRk. He mentions that Socuwan will "always be an ongoing project" and he is not going to cancel the project, but no development has been made since this announcement. Karl mentions his main priority was getting a full time job, and working on a smaller project to release in the meantime. His new project was announced a couple of weeks after this video on October 9th, 2015 in a devlog videohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdUnEEZGTw0. He shows the first gameplay footage of his video game Equilinox, which is a sandbox simulation game based on creating a virtual, stable ecosystem in a low-poly environment. In this video he also announces a Patreon page he created, which has become his primary method of funding. The game was intended to be a small project which would be completed within a few months, but ended up taking several years to complete. He documented the entirety of the game's development on his YouTube channel, similar to how he had done with Socuwan, and continues to document the game's development to this day. On May 4th, 2018, Karl uploaded a video explaining that he had delayed the game because he required surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from his tonguehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLDJ75e6Nls. On July 9th, he announced that the operation was a success, the cancer was removed from his body and he was continuing development on Equilinox as plannedhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtqMSFd6Qog. On August 26th, 2018, he announced he was once again moving, this time to a home in Sweden with his partnerhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX_2xTHJknc On November 24th, 2018, Equilinox was released on Steamhttps://store.steampowered.com/app/853550/Equilinox/. In a recent devlog, he announced he is working on a new project which will be announced within the following monthshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEalnuEAzfY, which will feature a new game engine written from scratch, and that active development for Equilinox is coming to an end. On August 28th, 2019 he announced his move from Sweden to Hamburg, Germany.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hg6glUj9Jw Projects * Socuwan (defunct) * Equilinox * Unannounced project (TBC) References